Bao Island Storyteller: Journey to the West

One hundred episodes. One hundred locations across Taiwan. One hundred chapters of Journey to the West. We end where we began — back in Taipei, under Taipei 101, the building that started it all. In the finale episode, we watch the entire team arrive home, receive their destinies, and become what they were always meant to be. Sun Wukong's golden headband — placed on his head in Chapter 14, a sourc...

Episode 99 brings us to Songshan District in Taipei — home of Raohe Night Market, one of Taipei's oldest and most beloved night markets, and the Rainbow Bridge that arches over the Keelung River in a graceful curve of coloured light. Raohe is the night market that locals argue is the best in the city — a single long lane packed with food stalls, the entrance guarded by the ornate Ciyou Temple. We...

Episode 98 takes us to Taipei's Wenshan District — home of the Maokong Gondola, the Taipei Zoo, and the hillside tea plantations where Muzha Tieguanyin tea has been grown for over a century. The gondola rises from the zoo at the valley floor up to Maokong, where tea houses dot the mountain and the city skyline glitters below. We eat Tieguanyin tea cuisine — dishes where the locally grown tea is us...

Episode 97 takes us to the mountains just southeast of Taipei — Shenkeng and Shiding, two neighbouring old towns in New Taipei City connected by winding mountain roads. Shenkeng Old Street is Taiwan's undisputed capital of stinky tofu, where an entire lane of shops each offers their own take on this pungent, crispy, irresistible delicacy. Nearby, Shiding's Crooked Lane (不見天街) is a covered alle...

Episode 96 takes us to Dongyin — the most remote, most northerly island of Matsu, sitting at the edge of Taiwan's sovereign territory. A white lighthouse stands at the island's northern tip — the northernmost lighthouse in Taiwan — and the old military fortification Guozhi Beige keeps watch over the sea from its granite cliffs. This is 國之北疆 — the Northern Frontier of the Nation. We eat the fre...

Episode 95 takes us to Beigan — Matsu's other main island — and to Qinbi Village, one of the most beautiful preserved settlements in all of Taiwan. Stone houses built from local granite cascade down a hillside facing the sea, their tile roofs and narrow lanes unchanged for over a century. The whole village looks like it belongs in a Mediterranean painting, except the architecture is pure Fujian. W...

Episode 94 keeps us on Nangan, Matsu — standing at the foot of the towering Mazu Giant Statue, the 28.8-metre goddess who watches over the sea from the island's highest point. From here, you can see the entire strait, the harbour below, and on clear days, the mainland coast. Nearby is the Matsu Tianhou Temple, the oldest Mazu temple in the archipelago, where fishermen have been praying for safe pa...

Episode 93 takes us to Nangan — the main island of Matsu, Lienchiang County. This is Taiwan's closest territory to mainland China, a windswept archipelago where Fujian stone villages cling to hillsides and old military tunnels are carved into granite. We walk the old streets of Nangan Village, explore the Beihai Tunnel — a Cold War-era boat tunnel carved through solid rock — and stroll the Tieban...

Episode 92 takes us to Little Kinmen — Lieyu Island, just a short ferry from the main Kinmen island, only five or six kilometres from Xiamen, China. The island's history is heavy — underground bunkers, anti-tank obstacles still lining the beaches, artillery shell casings turned into the famous Kinmen kitchen knives — but its life force is undeniable. We eat continuation bread stuffed with a fried...

Episode 91 keeps us in Kinmen, heading east to Jinsha Township. Shami Old Street has crumbling yellow walls that locals call "the Morocco of Kinmen," and the Lion Mountain Artillery Fortification still holds the howitzers from the 1958 bombardment, with live artillery drill demonstrations. Over a warming bowl of Kinmen Cantonese congee — rice cooked until the grains completely dissolve — and anoth...

Episode 90 takes us to Kinmen — the island that sat on the front line between Taiwan and the mainland for decades. Inside the Zhaishao Military Tunnel, soldiers carved through solid granite by hand over six years, creating an underground harbor where the sea water reflects light onto the cave walls in eerie silence. At Juguang Tower, built in 1952 to honor fallen soldiers, we look out over the str...

Episode 89 takes us island-hopping to Penghu's outer islands — Wangan, where green sea turtles come ashore to nest each summer, and the even more remote Dongjiyuping (Dongji Islet), where a Japanese-era lighthouse stands alone on a grassy hilltop surrounded by nothing but sea and wind. Over purple-red cactus ice cream and grilled small squid so fresh they barely need seasoning, we follow Sun Wukon...

Episode 88 takes us by ferry to Qimei — the southernmost inhabited island in the Penghu archipelago, over an hour of open sea from Magong. Its famous Double Heart Fish Weir is made of two overlapping heart shapes built from coral stones on the tidal flat, constructed by two villages working together over generations. Over plates of fresh sashimi and small squid straight from the morning boats — Qi...

Episode 87 stays in Penghu and crosses the great bridge to Xiyu — the westernmost of the main islands. At Daguoye village, a wall of hexagonal basalt columns rises twenty metres high, formed hundreds of thousands of years ago when volcanic lava cooled slowly into perfect six-sided pillars. At Waian Fishing Harbor on the far western tip, the sunset drops straight into the sea with nothing in the wa...

Episode 86 continues our stay in Penghu, heading north from Magong to Baisha and Huxi townships. At Kuibi Mountain, the famous "Moses Parting the Sea" phenomenon reveals a tidal walkway between the headland and a small islet when the tide drops — a path through the ocean that disappears in hours. Then we cross the Penghu Cross-Sea Bridge, where the wind blows so hard you feel like you're flying. O...

Episode 85 flies us to Penghu — the wind-swept archipelago in the Taiwan Strait. Magong City is the capital: home to the Tianhou Temple, one of the oldest Mazu temples in all of Taiwan with over four hundred years of history, and the Guanyin Pavilion seawall where the sunset over the Xiyu Bridge is Penghu's most iconic view. Over vivid purple-red cactus ice cream made from wild prickly pear fruit...

Episode 84 takes us along the North Coast to Wanli's Yehliu Geopark, where millions of years of erosion have carved the rock into bizarre mushroom-shaped formations including the famous Queen's Head, and onward to Jinshan Old Street where the duck rice stalls draw lines down the block. Over plates of tender Jinshan duck and sweet roasted sweet potatoes from the local fields, we follow one of the f...

Episode 83 takes us to Banqiao in New Taipei City — from the bustling Nanya Night Market packed with local vendors and familiar faces, to the serene Qing-dynasty Lin Ben Yuan Family Mansion and Garden, where winding corridors and quiet ponds feel like a world apart from the street noise outside. Over a bowl of Banqiao's famous rice noodle soup and a serving of Youkukou oyster vermicelli, we follow...

Episode 82 brings us down from Taoyuan's mountains into the flat, densely populated streets of Zhongli — home to two of Taiwan's busiest night markets sitting almost side by side. Over chewy Hakka stir-fried flat noodles seared with wok breath and the original Taiwanese bubble milk tea, we discover that the Moon Rabbit was once a celestial creature of the highest palace — and that her plan involve...

Episode 81 climbs into Taoyuan's mountain district — Fuxing, homeland of the Atayal people, where the Dahan River's upper reaches carve through deep valleys and Jiaoban Mountain offers sweeping views across the ridges. We walk the glass-floored Xiao Wulai Sky Walk suspended over a waterfall gorge. Over thick Hakka flat rice noodles in maqaw-spiced broth and sweet Lala Mountain peaches, we follow S...

Episode 80 arrives in Taoyuan at Daxi Old Street — a town on the banks of the Dahan River whose shophouses preserve one of Taiwan's finest collections of Baroque-front facades, red brick and carved stone archways, with the smell of braised tofu drifting through every alley. Over slices of dense, smoky Daxi dried tofu and tender soy-braised beef tendon, we reach one of the journey's most famous rec...

Episode 79 climbs deep into the mountains of Hsinchu's Wufeng Township — up to the Guanwu National Forest Recreation Area, where clouds drift through cypress forests at two thousand metres elevation and the air tastes sweet with phytoncide. Over indigenous bamboo rice roasted in fresh-cut bamboo tubes and fragrant maqaw (mountain pepper) sausage, we watch the Biqiu Kingdom arc reach its resolution...

Episode 78 brings us to Hsinchu City — the windiest city in Taiwan — and parks us at the City God Temple Night Market, one of the oldest and most atmospheric in the island. The temple was built in 1748 and has been the centre of Hsinchu's spiritual and culinary life ever since. Over iconic Hsinchu rice vermicelli stir-fried with wok breath and bouncy pork meatball soup, we enter Biqiu Kingdom — pe...

Episode 77 explores the Hakka heartland of southern Hsinchu County — Beipu, with its hundred-year-old tea shops and the ritual of lei cha, the hand-pounded bowl of tea-and-grain drink that was once a daily staple; and nearby Zhudong, gateway to the mountain persimmon farms. We grind our own lei cha until our arms ache, and eat persimmon cake that tastes like autumn condensed into a chewy square. T...

Episode 76 crosses into Hsinchu County — first to Guanxi, gateway to the rolling hills where Leofoo Village Theme Park stands with its zebras, giraffes, and roller coasters; then up a winding mountain road to Jianshi and Sima Lake, the most remote Aboriginal village in Taiwan, hidden in a forest of ancient red cypress trees over a thousand years old. Over iconic Hsinchu rice vermicelli and bouncy...